#MediaWiki powers #jQuery for language support

#Wikipedia is powered by MediaWiki. Wikipedia has a version in over 280 languages and, more languages are waiting in the wings. All these languages need support. This support is needed in all the computer languages used for Wikipedia; in PHP, Javascript even Lua.

With so many languages to support, you really need a standardised way to provide the support. Support for localisation, for input methods, for fonts.

One of the really brilliant software projects provides language support in jQuery and consequently in Javascript. It is under active development and consequently more and more languages are supported in this way. Currently there are over 155 input methods for over 75 languages - it is already the largest repository of input methods on the Web and, it is open source ...

This development has not gone unnoticed. People who support languages and scripts not supported by the Wikimedia Foundation have a hard time finding support for their languages, for their fonts and input methods. I have seen an implementation for the Thuɔŋjäŋ languages developed by Andrew Cunningham.

Even better, Andrew was happy enough to talk to Martin and this may result in even more collaboration on languages that deserve the same support just like any other language.

Do you want to experience the full power of jQuery.ime like me? We just have to wait for the Wikimedia Foundation to roll it out to its own websites. It is great dogfood, they just have to eat it.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Font support by #Google and #Wikimedia

The quality of the Amiri font has been recognised by the Wikimedia Foundation for some time; it has been provided in the Web Fonts extensionn for some time and recently in an other bit of "read the whole article to get to the good news" it became part of a Wikimedia supported jQuery library for web fonts.

Google has also recognised the Amiri font; they make Amiri available through their "early access" program. Google supports multiple (freely licensed) Arabic fonts as web fonts. The biggest difference for me between the two programs is that the WMF library has your server provide the fonts while the Google offering has the fonts provided through the Google infrastructure.

Both Google and WMF support fonts for many scripts. The question is what they will do when the font has technical requirements that are more than usual.

Recently the Tuladha Jejeg font for the Javanese script was given a free license and the Wikimedia Foundation will assess if they will include it in their Web fontd extension. There may be a technical problem; it makes use of the SIL Graphite technology. The question is to what extend do browsers support this technology.

When Google is serious in supporting the rare scripts, the opportunity to support the Javanese script through the Tuladha Jejeg font may be reason enough to put some extra effort in enabling support for SIL Graphite.

<grin> One may hope for Google to do more good, we know they can</grin> <seriously> For the WMF there is hardly another option when they are to support Javanese </seriously>
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Internationalisation is more than conversion of numbers

A friend read my last blogpost and pointed me to a recent presentation about the current best of breed internationalisation for JavaScript. He had been testing the new jQuery internationalisation library published by the Wikimedia Foundation and was astonished that the one thing "everybody" does was missing.

His question was: "where is the conversion of numbers and dates?". Obviously MediaWiki "does" the conversion of numbers and dates, it is just not part of the library that enables what is most crucial for us in Internationalisation; the translation of the messages in more than 280+ languages.

My friend Andrew was thinking of extending the library with the conversion of numbers and dates. It makes sense to have them included however, forking this really new library at this early time is "evilish". Talking to Santhosh, the developer of this library is the thing to do. It is, because in this way any future improvements in the existing 280+ languages or the missing 6000+ languages will be shared by anyone who updates to this library.

YES, I know jQuery is Java and not JavaScript. But I also know that my friends at the Wikimedia Foundation support the localisation of their JavaScript.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#jQuery and #Internationalisation of YOUR application

There has been a lot of good news about jQuery this week.

• The Khan academy announced that they are providing training for computer science and they started with jQuery
• A Webmonkey report states that jQuery is installed on half the internet websites
• Hidden in a Wikimedia blogpost is the news of a library to provide a full i18n framework that supports parameter replacements and grammar-, plural-, and gender-dependent translations.

The news of this jquery.i18n library is wonderful news. As it is the same software as used for the internationalisation of MediaWiki, it represents the current knowledge of the 280+ languages that have their Wikipedia.

When your software is open source and when you adopt this library to implement internationalisation, you are that much closer to make use of that wonderful community at translatewiki.net. They are already doing a great job for many applications, why not yours?

Thanks,

      GerardM

Support for #gender and #plural in #JavaScript may mean refactoring code

There are all kinds of valid reasons to revisit code. Improving the design of existing code is definitely one. Often code is changed because additional code needs to be applied. Sometimes, like in the case of implementing JQuery in our JavaScript code, it leads to code that performs better and it has many additional features that are now available to use.

One of the ambitions at translatewiki.net has been the support of GENDER and PLURAL in the messages used in JavaScript code. In order to provide such support, there is a need for functionality that provides the same functionality we have had for so long in PHP.

The JavaScript code to support GENDER and PLURAL has been written. It makes use of JQuery functionality and when the maintainers are lucky, their code already supports it. For the localisers at translatewiki.net, the answer "the software is written in JavaScript" is no longer a valid reason not to expect messages to be changed,
Thanks,
     GerardM

#MediaWiki release 1.18 is out

The new MediaWiki stable release has been announced and, the list of new features is impressive. When you have your own MediaWiki installation, you definitely want to consider upgrading.

There are several innovations that are quite relevant:

• jQuery is included as standard and, it is used
• several new languages have been added
• several extensions are now included as part of the distribution
• the qqx messages trigger a screen that helps identify specific messages

add &uselang=qqx at the end of the URL

An "in your face" message is often hard to identify. Adding &uselang=qqx to the URL will provide you with the information you need to identify the message at translatewiki.net for localisation or local modification. For the localisers this is a very significant tool.

Given that extensions are included in the new release, it will be a good idea to have three extensions included in the next release for Wikis that do not have English for its user interface. They are:

• LocalisationUpdate
• Narayam
• WebFonts

In this way a language will always be up to date with the latest localisations, it will be supported with input methods and fonts that make the Wiki accessible to as wide a group of people as we can make it. What would be really awesome is when new and improved keyboard methods and fonts can be distributed in a similar way as the messages...

Thanks,

      GerardM